


Time Enough

by Ocianne



Category: Perfume (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8880109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ocianne/pseuds/Ocianne
Summary: Many thanks to Joisbishmyoga and Ellen Brand for betaing and encouragement.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wren Truesong (waywren)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywren/gifts).



01 knocks hard on the door; 03 tries the handle; 02 waits and listens carefully, ears and eyes and mind all seeking the other side.

(They have no other names according to their keepers, but they remember more than they admit to—more than they ought, if the keepers were to be asked. Those names are held private, precious and secret, until there is a proper ‘outside’ in which to use them.)

The guard pauses in his stride, checking that the lock stays good, then continues patrolling down the hall in slow and measured steps. (There are others here as well, few and nameless and silent and only seen in passing along the corridors between their assigned bedroom and the sterile white underground halls and labs.)

When the footsteps fade completely, 02 tucks her bob behind one ear and murmurs, “He isn’t approaching the door or testing the lock any more; he barely paused long enough for a look to be enough.” A far cry from the early days when unexpected sounds from them led to full room checks by both guards of the floor.

“Good,” 01 murmurs back, looking over the other two appraisingly before nodding approval at the determination there. “Let’s get back to practicing.”

* * *

Before the boarding house, before the labs, almost before memory, there was a place with sunshine, stars, concrete, trees—but they don’t remember those, beyond concepts in a book. They don’t recall the earthquake-tsunami where they disappeared, three more names in the long list of missing persons. There are the white, cold, sterile rooms that made for pain and fevers and strange new abilities; and dusty grey paint and teal dresses and three grey cots bolted to the floor in the room of the rest of their lives. A few pieces of wooden furniture and shelves of textbooks and toys—”for enrichment”, one of the scientists had laughed to another, when they were changed at the start of another year—and the ever-present tread of the guard fill the rest of time between assessments.

Landscapes being theoretical isn’t a bad trade, though. There were more important things to hold on to.

* * *

02 brought the memory of touch, a hug of affection from a faceless adult whose fate is unknown. When she hugged her new roommates, back in the beginning, 02 couldn’t understand why 01 stood stiff with arms at her sides, and 03 brought her arms up defensively between their chests.

(“What are you doing?”

“It’s a hug.”

“What’s a hug?”

“It’s a way to be close? You do it with people you like, or care about. I thought we would be, since we’re together here now…”

“Well…” 03 had rubbed her hands along her arms, frowning thoughtfully. “Maybe warn us first?”

“Okay, like this? Hug!” 02 opened her arms wide with the declaration, palms out; the other pair exchanged a quick glance and each took one of her hands in their own.

“We can start like this, instead,” 01 offered. 02 beamed.

Ten years later, no more warnings are needed and touch is shared without a thought.)

-

03 brought the memory of talking with her hands, the source of which she cannot clearly recall. (She learned it from a big sister who made pictures in the air and sang without needing a voice, who could feel a baby’s cry without needing to know the tone of upset.)

They made it their own, and found they not only had a method of communication that no one else could break but also that rhythm and synchronicity made them stronger. What began as a handful of gestures for simple words became a full language for silent communication during supervision, with a subset of movements used specifically for working in unity with each other.

(That a significant portion of the vocabulary was subtle movements for insulting their captors while faking the true degree of their abilities during assessments was irrelevant. Or perhaps a bonus.)

-

01 brought the memory of the word, and a house where it was used as a greeting in the morning and a benediction at night.

The word is theirs now, though as often expressed through a flicker of fingers as through speech.

(“Love you.”

“Love you.”

“Love you.”)

* * *

 At the start, only 01 could lift the feather, only 03 could shatter a marble, only 02 could find the one marked card in the camouflage of four. With time, and practice, and vague memories shared and retold and strengthened, when they work together they find they can share.

Eventually the sharing sticks, and the individual abilities spread between them, but their strength remains in the combination of abilities.

The same power to move things, to find the important piece in a series of nothing, to break reality into components--no one ever expected them to be able to combine. If they had, they would have realized that the three abilities united and honed just the right way was the perfect ingredients for teleportation to a place strong enough in memory. (Of course, the bastards didn't expect them to clearly remember anything from Before, either. 01 doesn’t recall being told it, but she’s always been too stubborn for her own good.)

* * *

01 knocks hard on the door and tries the handle; 03 throws her mind against the wood. 02 _looks_ beyond the door with the same ease of finding a star through pasteboard. The guard walks on without a stutter, 02 reports. They have learned complacency.

01 smiles thinly, eyes alight with anticipation. “Tomorrow night, if he does it again. That’s when.”

* * *

 Due to their restrictive quarters, practice has been limited to moving around the small open area of the room in flashes of existence, increasing the number of travels as stamina allows. It’s not, as 01 pointed out ages ago when they first realized the possibilities, a guarantee of increased ease over distance, but it’s still a better chance for them than to stay at the questionable mercy of this place. No one has ever let slip what they’re being shaped _for_ , but that’s better left unanswered.

01 supplies the place, the house of wood and bamboo that’s as much a feeling as it is a sense-memory of creaking floorboards and laughter. 02 and 03 join in with what they’ve gleaned from a thousand retellings over the years together, fingers dancing across carpet and flashing through air—over and over and over again until the timing is just right, the synchronicity perfect, breathe and move and breathe and move and hands clasped together—

—void and air and a rush of sound—

—light, gentle lanterns nearby and pinpricks in the sky above and the great glow of the moon overhead, with polished wood against their bare legs instead of harsh prickled carpet.

The rush of displaced air still rings in their ears, heads light and woozy from the rush of power used and stretched and vanished.

Behind 01, a door creaks open and they turn in unison to confront a middle-aged man, his face lined and tanned. She doesn't know him--not properly, not a memory, but overwhelming familiarity hits her all the same.

“...Papa?”

“No, I don't have any children and you're tress--” He stops.

Peers hard at all of them, but her most of all.

“A-chan?” His voice wavers with uncertain, disbelieving hope.

“I think—I think I was Ayaka, Before.”

In the sudden silence another voice. “Darling? Did you find what made the sound?” The doorway fills further with a woman.

“Mama?”

Papa’s voice breaks. “A-chan—A-chan’s come home!”

01—No, she’s Ayaka again now, like 02 is Nocchi and 03 is Yuka. Ayaka hugs them both tight and laughs at how much brighter the world is.

There’s a brand new world to explore, full and endless. But that’s okay.

They have each other, and they have time.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Joisbishmyoga and Ellen Brand for betaing and encouragement.


End file.
